WHISTLER (British Columbia) – ABOUT 100 sled dogs, some badly maimed and writhing in pain, were killed and dumped in a mass grave after bookings dropped sharply for a tour operator following the 2010 Winter Olympics. The gruesome event was described in documents awarding compensation to a worker who claimed post-traumatic stress disorder after having …

RIVERSIDE (California) – ANIMAL services officers often get calls reporting ‘huge,’ monstrous reptiles, only to arrive and find an itty-bitty garden snake. The 5-foot (1.52 m) Monitor lizard wandering around a condo complex in the city of Riverside was way bigger than animal control officer Jenny Selter could have imagined. ‘She said she saw it …

BEIJING – AS DEMAND for pet bunnies grows ahead of the Year of the Rabbit, animal rights group Peta on Friday urged consumers to forgo adopting the furry creatures as household companions. Pet shops in China and elsewhere in Asia have seen soaring sales of rabbits in the run-up to the Lunar New Year, which …

BERLIN – PAUL the octopus, who shot to fame during the football World Cup last year for his flawless record in predicting the outcome of games, will get a shrine to mark three months since he died, his aquarium said on Monday. The tentacled tipster will on Thursday be honoured with a ‘Paul Corner’ at …

DALIAN – A MAN has trained 60 cats to guard a grain depot from rats, the Dalian-based Peninsula Morning Post reported on Monday. Yin Chunzhu, an employee at a storage and transportation company in Dalian, north-east China’s Liaoning province has been dubbed ‘Cat commander’ for his army of feline guards. The barn, stocked with organic …

BRISBANE (Australia) – SNAKES clung to floating debris, crocodiles lurked near homes and sharks swam the streets in Australia’s epic floods – but many more animals died in the deluge, experts say. The devastating floods that smashed through the nation’s north-east would have drowned wombats in their burrows, trapped and starved kangaroos in waterlogged paddocks, …

PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA) has launched an outdoor campaign targeted at highlighting the cruel practices behind fashion. Created by McCann Erickson Singapore, the outdoor campaign runs on 12-sheet poster sites throughout the island, advertising images of fictitious high fashion products such as …